FOUO Cultural Intelligence for Military Operations: Kuwait Kuwaiti Arabs in Kuwait Summary of Key Points • Kuwaiti Arabs comprise 45 percent (approximately 950,000) of the population in Kuwait. “Arab” is a name originally given to the nomadic inhabitants of the Arabian Peninsula. It is now largely a cultural/linguistic designation, embracing various national, regional, and religious groups in several different countries. • Kuwaiti Arabs tend to be dark-haired with brown eyes, and olive or dark skin. However, no single set of racial or physical characteristics defines Kuwaiti Arabs. Due to centuries of migration and contact with other groups, Kuwaitis can exhibit Persian, Turkish, Indian, African, and South Asian features. • Kuwaiti Arabs are predominantly Muslim. They are divided between Sunni (approximately 70 percent) and Shia (approximately 30 percent). The Sunni-Shia division has caused fewer problems in Kuwait than in neighboring states. For the most part, it has not undermined a sense of shared Kuwaiti Arab identity. • Kuwait is essentially a city-state. The majority of people live in Kuwait City, which has grown from a small sea-town into a modern, cosmopolitan city. There are smaller communities inland and to the south along the Gulf coast. • Kuwaiti Arabs trace their lineage to the Bani Utub tribe, which settled Kuwait in 1716. The journey to Kuwait established a strong sense of community and gave Kuwaitis the origins of a national identity. • Although Kuwaiti identity remains influenced by their nomadic heritage, Kuwaitis have been essentially settled for nearly 300 years. A center for maritime and desert trade, Kuwait was linked to the Arabian Peninsula, the Gulf, and India. • Kuwaiti Arabs speak Arabic. Most Kuwaitis also speak English. The Arabic language embodies an entire culture that links Kuwaiti and Islamic identity. • Kuwait is not a colonial society created in the wake of European conquest. Its long history of cultural and political autonomy has produced a distinct national identity. However, divisions cut across Kuwaiti society, including those along class, tribal, religious, and gender lines. FOUO Marine Corps Intelligence Activity April 2003 -1- FOUO • Since the mid-18th Century, members of the Al Sabah family have ruled Kuwait. Until the oil boom of the mid-20th Century, Kuwait’s merchant elite wielded substantial political power and influence. Although the ruling family has assumed the identity of royalty, the consultative nature of politics in pre-oil Kuwait continues to inform Kuwaiti perceptions of authority and power. • Kuwaiti history and identity can be divided into pre-oil and post-oil periods. Since the discovery of oil in the mid-20th Century, Kuwait has experienced a radical but relatively smooth transition from poverty to prosperity. The visible and material effects of the oil boom on Kuwait have included: the rapid improvement of living standards, massive infrastructure development, generous welfare-state provisions, a huge influx of immigrant labor (skilled and unskilled), and the adoption of a Western, consumer-oriented lifestyle. • Since late 1950s, Arab and Asian foreign workers have outnumbered Kuwaitis. Economically dependent on foreign labor, Kuwait has constructed a complex set of policies for the control and exclusion of migrants. The native Kuwaiti has almost complete authority over the foreign worker. Kuwaitis contrast their affluence, leisure, and power to foreing workers’ economic need, labor, and dependence. • Kuwaiti citizenship—which is limited to Kuwaiti Arabs meeting certain conditions, and is strictly regulated—implies belonging to an elite society and enjoying privileges not accorded to foreign workers. As a result, Kuwait is a society strictly stratified in terms of ethnicity and class. • The 1990 Iraqi invasion and occupation of Kuwait had profound consequences for Kuwait. Nearly 60 percent of the population fled. Following the war, the government restricted the immigration of nationals of those countries that collaborated with or supported Iraq—such as the Palestinians and Jordanians—while giving preference to the nationals of those states that supported Kuwait. • Kuwaitis had long unified against external danger, and the Iraqi invasion and occupation strengthened Kuwaiti national identity. Similarly, the Battle of Jahrah in 1920 established Kuwait’s independence from Saudi Arabia and reinforced the city- state’s national identity. • Kuwaitis tend to be highly educated, have traveled extensively abroad, and have a Western-oriented lifestyle. At the same time, Kuwaiti society and culture remains conservative, valuing local tribal and Islamic traditions. • Concerns over cultural survival have grown with the increasingly cultural diversity of the population. In their attempts to shield themselves from alien influence and protect their national privileges, Kuwaitis have maintained and refined those characteristics that serve as marks of national identity. FOUO Marine Corps Intelligence Activity April 2003 -2- FOUO Ethnic Group Kuwaiti Arabs comprise 45 percent (approximately 950,000) of the population in Kuwait. “Arab” is a name originally given to the nomadic inhabitants of the Arabian Peninsula. It is now largely a cultural/linguistic designation, embracing various national, regional, and religious groups in several different countries. Physical Description Kuwaiti Arabs tend to be dark-haired with brown eyes, and olive or dark skin. However, no single set of racial or physical characteristics defines Kuwaiti Arabs. Because of centuries of migration and contact with other groups, Kuwaitis can exhibit Persian, Turkish, Indian, African, and South Asian features. FOUO Marine Corps Intelligence Activity April 2003 -3- FOUO Cultural History Unlike many of its neighbors, Kuwait was not established by foreign powers in the wake of World War I. It has a long history of cultural and political autonomy. This history deeply influences current Kuwaiti identity. The Settlement of Kuwait In the late 17th Century, a protracted drought caused several families of the Adnani tribe of the Anaza to leave their home territory of Najd in northern Arabia for the coastal areas along the Gulf. After travelling a roundabout route through Qatar, they settled in a tiny fishing village known as Qorain in 1716, later named Kuwait. Kuwait, a diminutive of the Arabic word kut, means small castle or fort. The clans that migrated to Kuwait came to be known collectively as the Bani Utub. The name Utub comes from the Arabic word for wander Kuwaiti Men (atab). The journey to Kuwait established a strong sense of community and identity among the migrating clans. By the time they arrived in Kuwait, these families thought of themselves as members of a new tribe. The migration, in other words, gave Kuwaitis the origins of a national identity in a unifying founding story. It also allowed the Bani Utub to develop new skills, such as boatbuilding and sailing. When they arrived in Kuwait, the Bani Utub found a small settlement of the Bani Khalid tribe. The Bani Khalid was one of the largest and most powerful of the tribes that ruled eastern Arabia from the 17th through the 19th Centuries. Its territory ran from Kuwait in the north to Al Hasa in the south, and was bordered by Najd to the west. The Bani Utub and the Bani Khalid maintained good relations, and stability ensured by the Bani Khalid contributed to Kuwait’s rapid rise as a trading town. Kuwait has one of the best natural harbors in the Kuwaiti Man in the Desert Gulf. It also benefited from the caravan trade to Aleppo and Baghdad, the Shatt al-Arab trade, and the smuggling trade into the Ottoman territories (which Basra’s high tariffs encouraged). Trade included horses, spices, coffee, wood, dates, and pearls (Kuwait was located within an easy sail of the pearl banks that lay along the Gulf coast). The Bani Utub quickly gave up their pastoral way of life and became fisherman, sailors, and traders. FOUO Marine Corps Intelligence Activity April 2003 -4- FOUO As the nomads settled and abandoned grazing for ship-building and trade, they developed new political, economic, and social arrangements. Tribal traditions were retained, but they were placed within a more complex occupational and social hierarchy. Trade—the most profitable and prestigious activity—became tightly and hierarchically organized by the original Bani Utub families, who formed the elite stratum of society. By the mid-18th Century, the al-Sabah family had become the leading political family in Kuwait. Initially, they shared power in a semi-formal division of labor with two other families: the al-Khalifah and the al-Jalahimah. The al-Khalifa family took responsibility for trading and commerce; the al-Jahalma was in charge of maritime affairs, including the important ship-building and pearling industries. In the 1760s, however, the al-Khalifa left for Qatar and then Bahrain (where they continue to rule). Soon after, most of the al- Jalahimah left as well. At the time, such departures were a common and accepted way of settling political or commercial disputes in the Gulf. Originally, al-Sabah rule was based more on political and diplomatic skill than on military skill or hereditary claims. Never absolute rulers, the al-Sabah governed in consultation with the other elite Bani Utub families, who had become leading merchants. This sense of shared communal responsibility and privilege among a few close-knit families remains a distinctive feature of Kuwaiti society and culture. Kuwaitis maintained good relations with the nomadic tribes, such as the Ajman, who lived in the desert near Kuwait. The nomadic tribes that inhabited the areas around Kuwait earned their livelihood from herding animals, trade, raiding, and collecting tribute. Kuwait partly depended on the nomads for goods, trade, and contact with other regions. At the same time, close contact with the world beyond the Arabian Peninsula gave Kuwaiti society a more cosmopolitan flavor. Kuwait in the 19th Century Throughout the 19th Century, Kuwait grew rapidly into a center for maritime and desert trade. The trade network was dense and extensive, and Kuwaitis were known throughout the Gulf for their merchant fleet.